Thursday, June 03, 2004

Number of Google hits for “desert island”: 447,000
Number of Google hits for “deserted island”: 73,900

So “desert” outnumbers “deserted” by a factor of more than 6 to 1. I had always assumed those islands that castaways crawled onto were devoid of people, not rainfall. I wonder how many islands there are with less than 10 inches of rainfall per year? And I wonder whether there are six times as many of them as islands with no people?

Also, can someone point me to one of those “dessert islands” (2310 Google hits) – that is, islands filled with tasty treats? Does Jamaica count?